Links 2/14/11

In "It's Not Personal", Daniel Gros states:

"At negative net national savings, the U.S. is eating into its capital stock instead of adding to it. This cannot go on for long without sapping the recovery and putting the American economy at the mercy of international capital markets."

He should have added that, to allow national savings to grow, the Federal gov't should increase the deficit. He really should have, because we really, really need to increase our savings. Show us the money!

I mean, really?? I'm a scientist, and just reading that even made *my* eyes glaze over. If one thing they're trying to convey is the importance and relevance of the scientist's research to GQ readers, what percentage of the readers are really going to walk away with a deeper understanding of what Dr. Jamieson does by reading that description? It would have been a small thing to ask each participant to submit a layman-friendly version of their research (their "elevator talk" description, for example) for GQ to include.

Finally--one of the "scientists" is Dr. Oz. What is he doing in there? One, I would think he's already well-known enough; why not save that spot for another scientist? Two, yes, I know he's actually done research and published, and is on the faculty at Columbia. Fantastic. He's also a serious woo peddler, who has even featured everyone's favorite "alternative" doc, Joseph Mercola, on his talk show, and discussed how vaccines may be playing a role in autism and allergies (despite mounds of evidence to the contrary). This seems to completely contradict their goal of "research funding as a national priority," since Oz is often (and Mercola is always) highly critical of "mainstream medicine." I really don't understand his inclusion, and think it's to the detriment of the rest of the campaign.

He should have added that, to allow national savings to grow, the Federal gov't should increase the deficit. He really should have, because we really, really need to increase our savings.

Min,

You seem to have missed the part where he said [emphasis mine]:

But what matters for a country is not only how much households save, but the national savings rate, i.e., the sum of savings of households, the corporate sector and the government.

He points out that the net savings rate for the whole U.S. is actually negative, a situation matched only by Greece and Portugal in the OECD.

Granted, in some analysis not at all what conservatives want to acknowledge, he points out that the positive household savings rate in the U.S. is mostly in the upper incomes while the middle and lower classes are actually less able to save than before.